Pangs of conscience: definition, examples. Remorse

What is conscience? Why not every person can live on peacefully, having done a bad deed or not having done a good one? Why are we remorseful? How to deal with them? For a long time, scientists could not find the answers to these questions.

Initially, it was believed that the pangs of conscience are a product of the activity of a certain area of ​​the human brain, which is supposedly located in the forehead. As it turned out, the reason really lies in our body: not only in the gray matter, but also in the genes. In addition, the upbringing of the individual, his character, has a strong influence. But everyone, to one extent or another, is capable of feeling reproaches of conscience, without exception. You must admit that each of us at least once in our life began to reproach ourselves for any act. We repeatedly scrolled through the ill-fated situation in our heads in order to find a more acceptable way out of it.

What is conscience?

Conscience, or, as they say, later regret, overtakes us in moments when we understand that we did something bad, we did wrong. It comes in the form of an endless stream of thoughts. But these are not just ordinary thoughts that accompany us throughout the day. These are eating, escalating and annoying phrases: “If I acted differently, nothing bad would happen”, “These are not my problems, everyone gets out how can I don’t have to help”, “And if there is still a chance to fix it? " etc. Of course, everyone experiences torments of conscience in different ways, because everyone’s thinking is different.

Yes, repentance is nothing more than the voice of reason, laid down by mother nature in the early stages of the formation of human consciousness. He “lives” in us so that we can distinguish between bad and good, right and wrong. Only the one nature did not take into account: we begin to think about the consequences only after we have done something.

Perhaps this is not a beacon at all, giving us a chance to make the right choice, but the punishment for the wrong? After all, regret sometimes causes a lot of inconvenience. And one of them is the inability to think of anything other than their dishonest misconduct. Conscience helps us to think first, and then do it. However, not everyone knows how to learn from their mistakes.

Is shame and conscience the same thing?

Let us recall the moment when in childhood we blushed because we had to listen to the reproaches of our parents about another prank. In those moments, the face instantly filled with paint. We were ashamed. We regretted our act at the moment - here and now. Most often this just happened under the pressure of other people who, trying to teach mind-wisdom, shamed us.

And what followed next? Never mind! We completely forgot about all the problems and abuse of parents. There was no trace of negative feelings. Discomfort passed quickly enough. After all, as you know, we are ashamed in front of other people, and ashamed - in front of ourselves. In the case of parents, a mistake was made. Adults simply shamed instead of explaining. Perhaps if they detailed everything on the shelves, we would not only feel shame, but also conscience. And henceforth they would not do anything like that.

Based on this, a number of differences can be found between these two concepts. Shame usually becomes immediately after the deed. A man is trying to correct an apology. He does everything to resolve the situation, after which comes calm or even pride. Repentance comes unnoticed and sometimes even unexpectedly. Sometimes a person begins to pester a torment of conscience because of a situation that happened a week ago. Why it happens?

As already mentioned, it is society that forces the individual to admit his guilt. According to the rules of etiquette, he apologizes and forgets about the problem, because the brain was given a signal - “hang up”. Forgiveness plays the role of complacency: after all, there are no complaints. Pangs of conscience appear only when the brain either “did not understand” that there was an apology and forgiveness, or they really did not follow.

"Place of residence" of conscience in the human body

Few people know, but there is a very interesting theory. According to her, each organ also has a spiritual function, in addition to the physiological one. For example, the heart is responsible for heartache. Ear diseases, as it turned out, arise due to the fact that a person painfully perceives refusals and reproaches from other people. At the same time, the stomach, digesting food, “absorbs” impressions with it. And the kidneys are allegedly responsible for the conscience in the human body.

The spiritual and physiological functions of this paired organ are similar. At the physical level, the kidneys cleanse the body of toxins and toxins. On the spiritual, they likewise try to “bring out” all the worst, poisoning our consciousness. True, it does not always work out.

Why gnawing on conscience?

It is very clear that we feel regret after we commit an offense and until we hear the cherished: "I forgive you." But why should a person make excuses to himself? Why can’t you just forget about the conflict as a nightmare and not bother with all kinds of nonsense? Everything is explained easily: torment of conscience is not an excuse that we invent for ourselves in order to calm down. It is about responsibility to those who were offended.

The human brain is designed in such a way that it needs to be sure of everything, even the correctness of its "master." Therefore, thoughts about what happened are nothing more than a way to get rid of annoying and sometimes such boring reproaches of conscience. Unfortunately, excuses and searches for evidence of one's own innocence cannot be saved.

How to deal with the pangs of conscience?

It turns out that one can not even listen to the so-called voice of reason, ignore it. Our brain does so in some cases. For example, when in a person’s head there are thoughts more important than self-flagellation about a particular curiosity. How to get rid of the torment of conscience? You just need to learn to respect yourself. After all, if a person has low self-esteem, he will be afraid to do something wrong. Consequently, the individual will constantly involuntarily remind himself of punctures.

Some have the peculiarity of inventing false excuses for themselves, which, in their opinion, could save them from remorse. But it was not there! After all, those who seek excuses will never be right in the end. Therefore, it is necessary to exclude inventions of the reasons for innocence and how to scold yourself for what you have done.

And literary heroes have a conscience ...

The torment of conscience in the fate of famous literary heroes is a fairly common occurrence. Many of them, to one degree or another, thought about the correctness of their actions, justified themselves, or continued to bite themselves. The most conscientious character of Russian literature is rightfully considered Raskolnikov. It is worth remembering how at first he raved that they wanted to seize him, put him in prison, convict him. The hero was not even ashamed. Like, the old woman-percenter is to blame. Raskolnikov did not consider himself a "trembling creature." He assured himself that he had the “right” to kill those who supposedly prevent decent people from living. But after the deed, everything changed. Pangs of conscience drove him into a corner to such an extent that he literally began to go crazy. And he didn’t calm down until he got what he deserved for the murder of an old woman.

Anna Karenina is another conscientious heroine. But she reproached herself not for murder, but for treason to her husband. The woman herself chose her punishment - she threw herself under the train.

So, in their works based on psychologism, the authors show what a terrible thing is all the same - conscience. Her reproaches are able to shine with the mind, bring to suicide. Therefore, you do not need to commit those acts for which you would be painfully ashamed.